Takashi Shirogane
Takashi "Shiro" Shirogane is a gay character from Voltron: Legendary Defender. Biography Shiro was a member of the Galaxy Garrison team sent to Kerberos. While there they were captured by the Galra empire and tortured. Shiro eventually escaped and was able to make it back to earth, where he was rescued by his friend, Keith, and several members of the Galaxy Garrison, Lance, Hunk and Pidge. The five find the blue lion of Voltron and acctivate it, causing them to fly all the way to Arus. There they met Princess Allura and her adviser Coran. They told them the history of Voltron and asked them to become paladins. Once the other four lions were found, the black lion awoke and Shiro became it's paladin. Shiro leads the team through many missions before their final mission to try and take out Zarkon. During the fight something happens and Shiro suddenly disappears. He wakes up several months later in the clutches of the galra. He escapes and makes it back to Team Voltron. He works with the team before regaining his bond with the black lion and becoming it's leader. As they start to work with Lotor, Shiro starts to feel like there was something wrong with him. His mind is taken over by Haggar, and it's revealed that the Shiro that came back to the team was a clone. The Shiro clone fought with Keith but lost, and with the help of Allura, they're able to get the real Shiro into the clone body. The paladins then head back to earth, only to find out that Sendak had occupied it. Personality Shiro is serious and a natural leader to the other Voltron Paladins. Appearance Shiro is tall and well built with grey eyes. He originally had black hair with a forelock, but after getting captured and experimented on by the Galra, his forelock turned white and the sides of his head were shaved. After "dying" and having his consciousness returned to his body, his hair turned all white. When the galra captured him they remvoved his arm and replaced it with a robotic one. The arm was cut off his clone body by Keith during their fight, and but Allura eventually helped create a new one for him. The new one floated away from the upper half of it. Sexuality The Voltron production team always had intentions of including some kind of LGBT+ representation in the reboot. The characters that were most commonly speculated about were Keith, Lance, Pidge, and Shiro, although all members of members of Team Voltron had some kind of LGBT+ headcanon attached to them. Shiro was reveled to have been previously in a relationship with a man named Adam before the start of the series during the season seven premiere. There had been no previous mentions of Shiro being gay, but there had been a few hints, including when he tells Pidge that "Owning who you are is going to make you a better paladin." Reception The revelation that Shiro was gay was met with mostly positive reactions. The Voltron fandom made a lot of fan art in Shiro in gay pride flags and with his boyfriend Adam. The reaction turned negative a few weeks later with the release of Season 7, where Adam was killed after less than five minutes of screen time. There was also no mention of either characters relationship to one another, or their sexuality. Relationships Adam W. Adam was Shiro's boyfriend before he was sent on the Kerberos mission. Adam became worried that the mission would effect Shiro's degrading condition and thought he shouldn't go, but Shiro insisted that he should go. Adam breaks things off, and tells Shiro not to expect him to be waiting when he get's back from the mission. During Sendak's first attack, Adam was killed when his squadron was sent out. When Shiro returned to earth, he found out that Adam died and went to his plaque. He said he was sorry, before having to leave. Curtis Curtis was a part of the crew of the Atlas, where it's implied that he met Shiro. The two dated at some point, and eventually got married. Tropes * * * * * * - Asian, gay, has PTSD, lost an arm, and terminally ill. See Also : Navigation